Wire strippers in the broadest sense are used to separate an insulating jacket from an underlying metal conductor wire. Conventionally, a wire stripper may refer to a tool that removes the end of a wire jacket and exposes the wire conductor for electrical assembly. However, another type of wire stripper removes the wire jacket at its entire length for metal (mainly copper) recovery purposes in manufacturing, construction and recycling of end-of-life products. Recycled copper is a major source of copper in the modem world.
Copper wire is 100% recyclable and has a higher market value than the same amount of copper before it is stripped. Usually the wire conductor itself is not defective, but the insulation or jacket on the wire may be defective and therefore require recycling or scrapping. A blistered or bubbled jacket, incorrect or blurred markings and wrong color code may require the defective wire to be stripped or scrapped and the metal conductor reclaimed.
Manual wire strippers for metal recovery are simple to use and economical but are time consuming for long lengths of wire. Powered wire strippers on the other hand may provide mechanical force for moving the wire through the stripping process. However, unruly coils, bent, kinked and tangled wire may get caught in a manual stripper and jam and even damage a powered wire stripper. There is therefore a long felt need in the art to further improve and speed up the stripping process for large and unruly coils and bent, kinked and tangled masses of defective insulated wire.